BOOK: Mattoso on Slavery in Brazil

African Diaspora, Ph.D. is revisiting scholarship that has shaped the study of people of African descent across time and place.

Kátia M. de Queirós Mattoso.To Be a Slave in Brazil, 1550-1888. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1986.

In a 1987, Maricela Medina wrote:

Although the bibliography on Brazilian slavery is extensive, publishedworks have generally focused on the economic aspects of the institution, its effects on the larger community, and particularlythe eventual resolution of the question of slavery. Few works have attempted an examination of slavery from the viewpoint of the slaves. Appearing first in French and then in Portuguese, Mattoso’s valuable work is finally available to the English reading public. The contribution of the work lies in the author’s attemptto reveal the feeling, ideas, and concerns of Brazilian slaves.

One of the strengths of the work is the portrayal of slaves as actors, people consciously making choices in the process of adaptation to the strange and hostile environment of Brazil. Nothing comparable to Mattoso’s work exists in the literature on Brazilian slavery. Works like those by Russell-Wood and Malheiro make contributions in their own right but lack the slave’s perspective which this work clearly presents…